A strange sentiment, “Envy”. We are envious of others happiness and certainly not of their unhappiness. Is not that ridiculous? would not it be natural to desire their happiness? why be uneasy when they are happy? why feel spiteful of their good qualities? the opposite of envy is rejoicing at all the joyous, little and great, experienced by others. Their happiness becomes our own.
Envy does not have desires, the attractive side; it is does not come disguised as a righter of wrongs, like anger; it does not adorn itself with showy ornaments, like pride; and it is not even lazy, like ignorance. No matter what light you look at it in, it always comes across as detestable. Happyho also provides best Meditation classes in Noida and Delhi NCR India area
There are, of course, several degrees of envy and jealousy, a broad palette ranging from envy to blind, destructive rage. Benign, everyday envy distilled into half – conscious thoughts that emerge as disparaging remarks. Envy reflected in mild malice towards a colleague who is doing better than us, in caustic reflections on a friend who always seems to meet with good fortune. Envy and jealousy derive from the fundamental inability to rejoice in someone else happiness or success. The jealous man rehearses the injury in his mind, rubbing salt in wound over and over again. There is no chance of happiness what so ever at that moment.
In every instance, envy is the product of a wound to self importance and the fruit of an illusion. Whats more, envy and jealousy are absurd for who ever feels them, Since unless he resorts to violence, he is their only victim. His Pique does not prevent those he is jealous from enjoying further success, wealth, or distinction.
The truth is, what can other people happiness possibly deprive us of ? nothing, of course. Only the ego can be wounded by it and feel it as pain. It is the ego that cannot bear other people’s good cheer when we are depressed or their good health when we are sick. Why not take their joy as a source of inspiration instead of making it a source of vexation and frustration?
What about the jealousy born of a sense of injustice or a betrayal it is heart breaking to be deceived we are deeply attached to, but it is again self love that is responsible for the ensuing suffering. La Rochefoucauld observes in his maxims that ” there is more self love than love in jealousy”.
A husband’s infidelity hurst a woman at the deepest level. She cannot stand the idea of his being happier with another women. She asks repeatedly the same question; why not she? what does he finds in other woman than she does not have.
It is extremely difficult to maintain once equanimity in such circumstances. Fear of abandonment and sense of insecurity are closely linked to the lack of inner freedom. Self absorption, with its inseparable posse of fear and hope, attraction and rejection is the foremost enemy of inner peace. If we really want someone to be happy, we cannot very well insist on telling them how they have to go about it. Only the ego has the nerve to say; “your happiness depends on min” . Swami Prajanandpad has written; “when you love someone, you cannot expect him to do as you please. That would be tantamount to loving yourself. ”
If we are even remotely able to think clearly, we should courageously try to set aside the mental images that torture us and the obsessiveness that makes us dream of cruel reprisals against the “usurper” of whom we are jealous and refrain from reinforcing them. There are the direct results of our having forgotten our inner most potential for affection and peace. It will be helpful to generate empathy and altruistic love for all people, including our rivals. This antidote will heal the wound and in time envy and jealousy will come to seem like merely a bad dream.
